Aetuts+ is a site made to house and showcase some of the best After Effects tutorials around. We publish tutorials that not only produce great effects, but explain them in a friendly, approachable manner. We also stock up links to tutorials, articles, presets and plugins from around the web to help you get the most out of After Effects.

Satya has done it again. He's managed to re-wire and re-invent tools that we've had for a long time to create what would normally only be possible with third party plugins. For all of you that ask for tutorials that only use built-in plugins, this one is for you. Satya has even created a free preset so you don't have to re-create the effect from scratch every time.

46. Create a “Bullet Time” Logo Shatter Effect

Wikipedia defines Bullet Time as a digitally enhanced simulation of variable speed (i.e. slow motion, time-lapse…) photography used in films, broadcast advertisements and computer games. It is characterized both by its extreme transformation of time (slow enough to show normally imperceptible and un-filmable events, such as flying bullets) and space (by way of the ability of the camera angle—the audience's point-of-view—to move around the scene at a normal speed while events are slowed). The first movie credited with this effect is Blade, but it was the Matrix that really made it famous.

In this tutorial, Wes shows us how to use the built-in Shatter plugin to achieve "Bullet Time" with type or a logo.

47. Dunk Your Logo in a Wave World

Adam brings back his charm in this tutorial that is all about the rarely used Wave World plugin. You will learn all the ins and outs about this plugin that can even do 3D!

48. Create a Stormy, Electric Type Reveal

This tutorial gives a different twist on how to use the powerful form plugin. Learn how to use it to create a mysterious and electric type reveal.

49. Give Your Type Some Ball Action

We get a lot of requests for tutorials that don't require 3rd party plugins, and since we like to make our readers happy whenever possible, Adam is back breaking down the rarely used "CC Ball Action" built-in plugin to make some very cool type transitions.

50. Color Grade and Enhance a Horror Shot

Good horror isn't about over the top effects. Its about using effects and colour correction to create a constant and un-nerving sense of fear, suspense and terror as part of an imaginative and horrifyingly well directed film. In this first part James will teach how to create 2 scenes. First how to take a shot of a mansion and give it an intense and scary look through sky replacement and colour correction. Second we will take a shot of a stone gargoyle face and create a subtle yet creepy effect in which it frowns evilly at an oncoming victim. Be afraid...be very afraid.

51. Make Form Cinematic

The secret to making motion graphics look sexy and less digital is to borrow some tips from the cinematic production world. Simon breaks down a bunch of tips including how to build your own light leaks and film scratches! The tricks learned in this tutorial can be applied to any motion graphics piece.

52. Create a Geometric Color Explosion

Wes Kandel is back to show us how to combine geometric shapes made in Illustrator and then imported and animated in After Effects to create his very cool Geometrika piece.

53. Create a 3D DNA Strain

We are very happy to welcome AE legend Maltaanon to the Aetuts+ family. Maltaanon kicks things off with this tutorial that makes very clever use of Trapcode's Form plugin to create something that would normally require a 3D application, but is accomplished entirely within After Effects.

54. Learn How to Create a Light Rays Custom Effect from Scratch

A custom effects is special kind of preset that looks and behaves like a plugin. It allows you to save a special recipe of plugins and keyframes into something that you can reuse with ease. Jorrit Schulte has been producing a bunch of these very useful custom effects and providing them for free at aenhancers.com. In this tutorial he breaks down how to create the incredibly popular light rays effect and how to package it all into a custom effect.

We're going to break down how you create a light ray effect, like shine, and then we're gonna learn how to create a preset so you can use it again any time you like inside of the preset. Finally we are going to make that preset into a custom effect using a script from nabscripts.com.

55. Create Whispy Spirit-like Text

Adam keeps digging through the good ol' built in CC plugins and continues to come up with very clever and visually awesome solutions. In this tutorial Adam uses CC Smear as the basis to create text that appears in as if a spirit whisped into it.

56. Create a Split-Flap Type Display

Split-Flap-What? It's the term used for displays that are found in train stations and airports, where they typically display departure and/or arrival information and do that cool flipping of letters to display the new information.

This tutorial does not show how to create the effect from scratch but instead it is a tutorial to explain how to use the project file created by Mattias Peresini who runs the totally awesome mattrunks website which has incredible tutorials for After Effects in French. We are very happy to have Mattias doing his first English tutorial for us here at Aetuts+.

57. Create A Surprising Billowing Cloth Reveal

It's amazing how much pseudo-3D you can do in After Effects today. This tutorial will focus on using a new plugin that brings 3D bicubic deformations to layers that allows you to truly bend and twist layers in 3D space. If you are familiar with 3D packages, this is true displacement as opposed to just bump mapping.

58. Create a Sci-Fi Movie Title Sequence

This tutorial covers the creation of a space-like si-fi title sequence from scratch. Michael shows us how you can easily create a visually interesting and impressive title animation with some simple title cards and text animation. The tutorial uses the Twitch plugin from Video Copilot, though a similar effect could be obtained by manual keyframing.

59. Create an Underwater Scene

We try to provide tutorials for users at all levels of After Effects. In this tutorial you will learn some good fundamentals on how to create a type reveal with an interesting background and environment. You will learn how to use all built-in tools and plugins to create a faux underwater scene complete with a bubbly type reveal. Simple.

60. War! Or How to Create a 3D Particle Generated Video Display

Wes comes back with another adrenalin fueled piece that is sure to become an Aetuts+ favorite. Using Trapcode Form as the basis to display video, he shows how to use the audio reactors built in to form to achieve something very very cool.

61. Create an Elegant Concentric Rings Animation

Inspired by the work of Mark Coleran. Satya shows us how to use iterations of simple shape layers to create some beautiful procedural art.

62. Heads Up on Some Cool Graphic Type Techniques

In this tutorial, regular Aetuts+ author Markus Gustafsson shows us how to use adjustment layers and expressions to create some edgy graphic design.

63. Create a Burning Building VFX Shot

Starting with nothing more than a few still photographs, learn how to create this dynamic burning building VFX shot.

64. Create an Effect Inspired by the Bourne Ultimatum End Credits Sequence

In a very clever use of Trapcode Particular, this tutorial shows us how to create an effect that is inspired by the Bourne Ultimatum end credits sequence.

65. Create a Radar Screen Logo Reveal

Using only built in plugins, learn how to create a radar screen which then reveals a logo. You will learn how to use 32-bit mode and few other tricks to simulate a real screen glow.

66. Learn How to Rig and Animate a Character and Create your Own Odyssey Day 1

In this massive 2 part tutorial you will learn how to rig and animate a character using a combination of Illustrator, Photoshop and After Effects and create an incredible, cinematic odyssey piece.

Part 1 covers pre-production techniques, workflow overview and creating and rigging the character. It also covers creating the star field background and creating the eye close-up.

67. Learn How to Rig and Animate a Character and Create your Own Odyssey Day 2

This is part 2 of this very comprehensive tutorial where you will learn how to rig and animate a character using a combination of Illustrator, Photoshop and After Effects and create an incredible, cinematic odyssey piece.